'Iran Cyber Army' Hits Azerbaijan State TV Site: AGP via Naharnet

An interesting article from Agence France Press pointing to technological cyber warfare developments in the region.

http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/31033-iran-cyber-army-hits-azerbaijan-state-tv-site

Lebanon's Faulty Democracy Desperately Needs Re-engineering

At different junctures over the past few months (years actually), Lebanon's cabinet has found itself at a standstill. This time it was triggered by one minister refusing to sign a bill approved by the cabinet. At others times, it has been for other reasons. There are some who regard this simply as Lebanon's political system balancing itself through partisanship. Is it or is it perhaps due to a faulty democratic design, which essentially allows anyone of the three branches of government (Presidency, Cabinet, or Parliament- the Judiciary unfortunately is currently too weak to make a difference) to have a veto effectively putting a spike in the wheel of government? Unfortunately, strong evidence seems to point to it.

Lebanon's democratic design has been in effect (with some constitutional tweaking) for about seven decades. During this time, one would assume that being a democratic system, it would have established some self-correcting mechanisms. Unfortunately it hasn't, and the political system has proven to be quite unstable with civil strife recurring in the 1950's (under the Presidencies of Khoury and Chamoun), 1970's (under Franjieh), 1980's (under Gemayel), and this last decade (under both Lahoud and now Suleyman). On average, cabinets get shuffled every 18 months. It would not be an exaggeration to state that the Lebanese political system at times seems more in tuned to instability than stability.

At the heart of the issue may be the multitude of divisions and segmentations enshrined in the Lebanese parliamentary democracy. These cross-sections may be sectarian, regional, and even economic class. And while these rigid political divisions and quotas are seen by some as a way to protect one portion of the population against the other, in effect it does the opposite by weakening all portions of the population and even more so the state itself. Constant fear mongering has perpetuated these divides, and what has resulted is a constant and relatively easy hold by some leaders. Ironically, the leaders themselves, while perhaps able to split some spoils, are also weakened by their weakened constituents. No leader in Lebanon- even while holding a national office- can truly claim that they represent all of Lebanon, because no leader in Lebanon has ever been voted in by all of Lebanon. As surprising as it may seem to some readers, political leaders in Lebanon- with the exception of parliamentarians- do not run for office and rarely have to compete for their job. Lebanon's President is typically chosen at the last minute without the population having ever heard of his plan. The same applies to the Prime Minister who is appointed by the President through parliamentary consultation. The choice of cabinet has lately turned into a painful tit-for-tat negotiation rendering it as a weakly glued unit that is ready to burst at the seams at the slightest challenge.

It is therefore no wonder why lately some popular leaders- who boast of strong parliamentary representation- act in ways that pre-empt both the President and the Prime Minister. Intrinsically, they are questioning the true support those in power actually wield. And while their question and behavior in a normally-functioning democracy may be legitimate, in Lebanon it may be missing the point, because Lebanon's system was not built to support mass support. Rather, it is what some in Lebanon like to sell as a "consociational democratic" design. In other words, it is a design, which needs everyone’s tacit approval. Unfortunately, history has proven once and again that consociationalism is useless when the parties do not agree. Just ask the common citizen if they would prefer consociationalism with no electricity or electricity with no consociationalism. Of course, we are also assuming here that the so called consociational democratic system itself is stabilizing, when Lebanon’s history proves everything but.

It is easy to blame this party or that for the current Lebanese gridlock. I prefer to take a step back and study things objectively. What is happening now has little to do with electricity or wages. Rather, it is symptomatic of a much deeper problem with the overall system, which desperately needs some fundamental re-engineering. Lebanon’s democracy may continue to limp along, but it does no Lebanese any good to close their eyes to the possibility of re-thinking a system while safe-guarding each of Lebanon’s community needs and attending to their fears. We are all Lebanese after all, and if we truly love this nation, we should aspire to constantly be thinking of new ways to improve how society works and functions. And if we were to fail in our social experiment, well then I suppose we would have this rotten system to fall back on after all, wouldn't we?

Bashar Assad Could Have But Didn’t

It has been interesting to see that so far in the Arab Spring, most of the deposed leaders have had to be pried away forcefully from their perches. Not one has decided to peacefully negotiate a settlement with his people. Not one has managed to transfer power seamlessly to successors. To some this may come as a surprising. To others it may come as irrational behavior. It is neither; for if one looked at it from the point of view of the dictator himself, there are really two choices. One is to peacefully surrender power and leave under a negotiated settlement. The other is to stay and fight.

If we look at the first option, leaving in peace and with all the riches would be an ideal scenario for the dictator. The problem, however, for most incumbent dictators in the Arab World knowing what they know about their regime’s past (which in most cases has left a trail of blood and carnage) is that this scenario is nothing but a pipe dream. Their true calculation is what would happen if those who agreed to the settlement and took control of the state resources eventually reneged on their settlement and persecuted the dictator. It has happened in the past- Pinochet in Chile had to fight until his death for his impunity clause years after he had left power peacefully under a negotiated settlement. Most dictators are survivors who know very well how to employ tactics themselves; and so it is a scenario that the typical dictator may romanticize about, but is unlikely to bet his life on.

The second choice for the dictator is to stay and hold out. By the actions of all the Arab dictators thus far, this appears to have been their choice, which is not irrational for three reasons. The first is it gives them a chance at actually defeating the insurgency. From an ex-ante perspective, the dictator cannot ascertain victory or defeat, but they may very well see it as a chance worth taking- not unlike the chance they once took decades ago when they themselves usurped power. Unfortunately, as they are not trying to defeat a coup, but rather a popular uprising, defeating an entire population is a human endeavor that is doomed to fail. The Egyptian and Tunisian Presidents for all their military might, state resources, and support simply could not stand against the masses of the people. The second reason is that under such a scenario, the dictator hopes to postpone what deep inside they may very well know is inevitable. Still, in their eyes, if they could hold out long enough, conditions may become more favorable. Unfortunately, “postponing the inevitable” by forcefully trying to subdue the masses tends to have the exact opposite effect- speeding up the revolutionary process. While the Libyan revolution started after the Yemeni one, its level of violence was ever higher that the people’s reaction was stronger and more swift. Gadhafi fell before his Yemeni counterpart. And the third reason is the notion of going down with one’s head held high. Unfortunately, seeing Mubarak on a stretcher, Yemeni Saleh’s bandaged head, and Gadhafi’s corpse strewn on the floor pretty much answers it.

This brings us to the perplexing case of Bashar Assad in Syria. Unlike the other Arab dictators, Assad himself is a derivative of the Syrian Baath regime, not its creator. Arguably, while his father ruled Syria with an iron fist for almost three decades, almost everyone understands that Bashar’s rule was serendipitous and generally speaking not violent. Bashar not having blood on his hands, begs the following question: What did Assad have to lose by stepping down, or in the very least promising to step down at the end of his term?

The answer here is not as easy as in the other cases. In none of the other cases was there occupation (The Golan Heights). In none of the others was there existential geopolitical support coming from an outside state (Iran). And in none of the other cases, was a sizeable portion of the population supportive or as Bashar himself stated in a recent TV interview not opposing. Is it for these three reasons that Bashar has decided to stand and fight? Perhaps, unfortunately, by doing so he has also caused the single most important condition that was in his favor to turn against him, and that is not having the blood of his people on his hands. For in the ongoing 10 month insurgency more than 6000 Syrians have reportedly been killed.

What happens now? It is increasingly unlikely that the Syrian conflict could be brought to a peaceful end. If the deaths continue to rise, internally the emerging civil war may intensify, and externally more sanctions if not outright genocide charges may be brought against Bashar Assad and the regime. But did this really have to happen? It appears that Bashar’s end game is increasingly becoming a zero-sum game where either his regime wins or the entire Syrian nation will be made to pay. Unfortunately, in this game no one in Syria wins.

What on Earth Would Prompt a Newspaper Editor to Call for Obama's Assassination?

Not sure what to make of this ... Shocking, even more so if Adler's analysis is true or worse yet if it was some kind of message from Israel to attempt to pressure the US into attacking Iran ...
WY


By Adam Clark Estes | The Atlantic Wire – Fri, Jan 20, 2012
Article on: http://news.yahoo.com/earth-prompt-newspaper-editor-call-obamas-assassination-194702814.html

 

It's unclear if he was being satirical or just insensitive, but Atlanta Jewish Times owner and publisher Andrew Adler more or less called for President Obama's assassination in his column last week. Gawker's investigative hawk John Cook blogged about the column on Friday, prompting a collective facepalm on Twitter. What in the world was this newspaperman thinking when he wrote this? "Maybe it's meant as parody, I don't know," The Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg wondered, after admitting that he'd first heard of Adler's paper on Friday afternoon. "Not that the Atlanta Jewish Times is known for parody. Or anything." Cook notes that the Atlanta Jewish Times "appears to be a real community newspaper" with "a circulation of 3,500 and a staff of five."

RELATED: Obama and Jewish Voters: Gallup Doesn't See an Exodus

The statement itself does sound ridiculous enough to be described as Swiftian, however:

Three, give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States' policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.

Yes, you read "three" correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel's existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don't you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel's most inner circles?

Really we can imagine one or two answers to the what-was-he-thinking question. The first, Cook addresses in his post: Adler was floating a conroversial-sounding hypothetical to spark a debate. He didn't really want somebody to kill the president over his views on Israel. Adler told Cook, "I wrote it to see what kind of reaction I was going to get from readers." Cook wondered:

And what was the reaction? "We've gotten a lot of calls and emails." [Adler replied]

The second basically awful answer is that Adler meant it, immediately heard from readers that it's an offensively horrible idea and hustled to cover his tracks when it hit Gawker. Who knows -- satire or not, it's certainly sparked a Friday night cocktail conversation topic that nobody's been waiting to have! It's cool to be provocative, especially if you're a journalist or employer of journalists. But it's definitely not cool to put out a hit on the president.

On Assad's Interview with Barbara Walters

Mind boggling ... Utterly mind boggling ... A detached demeanor pointing if nothing else to a man truly not running the show at all ... or perhaps a man who does not feel cornered pointing, dare I say, to a Farsi retirement strategy ... ?

You are invited to reach your own conclusions. Here's the interview: 
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/newsmakers/abc-exclusive-defiant-assad-denies-ordering-bloody-crackdown-111944523.html

The Arab Intellectual Chasm with the Times

In a recent article in the New York times, Robert Worth questions the role (or lack thereof) that the Arab Intelligentsia have had on the current revolutions transpiring in the region. He writes,

The absence of such figures in the Arab Spring is partly a measure of the pressures Arab intellectuals have lived under in recent decades, trapped between brutal state repression on one side and stifling Islamic orthodoxy on the other. Many were co-opted by their governments (or Persian Gulf oil money) or forced into exile, where they lost touch with the lived reality of their societies. Those who remained have often applauded the revolts of the past year and even marched along with the crowds. But they have not led them, and often appeared stunned and confused by a movement they failed to predict.       

I touched on the very subject from some different angles in an Op Ed article published in 2003, which I invite my readers to review:


Arab Intelligentsia Walks a Tightrope
Wissam S Yafi
As published in:
The Daily Star and Al Jazeera, 5/14/03

Arab intelligentsia, carpe diem! In the runup to the Iraq war, much of the Arab intelligentsia walked a tightrope. While not wanting to be perceived as supporting Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime, they vigorously condemned America. Even before the first bullet had been fired, typewriters banged away in New York, London, and Paris finding America guilty of warmongering, oil robbing, and colonization.

What is ironic is that the intelligentsia is by definition enlightened and hence liberal in its inclination. Recently though, the Arab intelligentsia accidentally found itself in the unorthodox position of defending one of the most repressive regimes in the world against one of the most liberal. How did this twist of fate come about? There were several reasons. With the war almost over, it is important to understand them, for they will affect the development of some of the liberal ideas being propagated.
The first reason for this twist is chronic disenchantment. Arabs over the past several decades have become disillusioned with lack of economic opportunity, political representation, and social stability. Pan Arabism failed. Autocracies failed. Military dictatorships failed. Being at the forefront of some of these movements, it is not surprising that the Arab intelligentsia has turned skeptical. The key questions to be asked here are therefore: Has the intelligentsia become so disenchanted that it will give up at the moment when real liberal reform may finally be emerging? Will they no longer preach for the one social ideal that has yet to be tried in their region ­-democracy- ­ because it was forcefully brought in by America, even if it is closest to their principles?

This brings us to the second reason: Arab pride. After centuries of military defeat and humiliation by external powers, some Arabs perceive their pride to be all that remains and obstinately take counterintuitive positions and ones in apparent self-disinterest- Palestinian suicide bombings of Israeli civilians as opposed to Israeli military targets being a case in point. While pride is good, unbridled pride risks blindness and perhaps even ridicule, such as met the declarations of Sahaf, the Iraqi information minister. While for it to occur within a very closed and isolated Baathist Iraq may be understandable, for it to also occur to Arab thinkers living in much less repressive environments points to a more serious problem. There comes a time when humility, national interest and the desire to learn from mistakes must be made more expedient than pride. Germany and Japan after World War II are good examples to learn from, having risen from humiliation by sheer hard work, intelligence; and yes why not, a bit of national pride.
The third reason for the Arab intelligentsia’s apparent misalignment may be their misunderstanding of the Arab street. While it may be easy to blame the intelligentsia, in reality does anyone in the Arab world truly know what the Arab street wants? Everybody was saying that Iraqis loved Saddam Hussein until the images of them trampling on his fallen statue’s head emerged. While some may point to polls, what is it exactly that these polls are measured against when little if any institutionalized opposition exists to come up with alternative ideas; when political process for the most part is imaginary, generating chronic apathy; and when clientelism reigns supreme? Could it be that all the Arab street wants is practical solutions and­ freedom to think and work, perhaps?

The fourth reason is simply geopolitical miscalculation. Pre-Sept. 11, 2001 Cold War intrigue was overutilized, post-Sept. 11, 2001 realities ignored, American intentions and interests misunderstood, and Iraqi power and regime allegiance overestimated. Nevertheless, it was surprising to see some renowned expatriate Arab thinkers sticking to over-simplistic and outdated conspiracy theories when indications pointed to fundamental shifts in US policy toward the region.

With all this said, what does it all mean to the future of the region? Essentially, it means one of two scenarios. One is that the Arab intelligentsia puts the past behind it, sets pride aside, and searches for a flicker within itself to light a torch that carries a liberal message. Another scenario is that it could bury itself under a heap of past disappointments, emerging only to regain what little pride it perceives still remains through futile and unconstructive attacks on any reform initiative coming to the region.

Recently, many typewriters have fallen silent. My hope is that it is a sign of introspection and not surrender, because a difference can yet be made. Arab intelligentsia, Carpe diem!

Is Might Always Right? Apparently Not ...

A fascinating article on the consequential implications of this apparently inconsequential UNESCO Palestinian vote on the US and tech companies of all people ... It seems the US has put itself in quite a bind with some commentators questioning whether the US is ready to "boot itself out" of some of the world's most important governing bodies including the UN, WHO, WIPO ... etc. Idiotic by the US t...o get itself in this bind and will be interesting to see how it gets itself out of it. Here's a quick solution: Forget about the whole issue and move on ... The Palestinians seem to have outwitted the US for a change or as a Reuters reporter termed it "Now has the US over a barrel". So, it seems might is not always right after all ...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/67217.html